Solar Cells to charge 3s lipo battery?

Thread Starter

abod123

Joined Nov 11, 2021
1
hi guys I am looking for good solar cells to charge 3s lipo battery in addition I will use the battery for the quadcopter drone using mix mode lipo battery and solar charge it, any suggestions?
 

KeithWalker

Joined Jul 10, 2017
3,063
How big is the drone and what is the capacity of the battery? You need quite a large area of solar cells to generate enough current to charge a drone battery. The charger in a drone will not charge the battery while the drone is running. Are you going to design your own solar charger?
 

dl324

Joined Mar 30, 2015
16,846
Lithium batteries don't tolerate abuse well. Are you going to use an appropriate charger for the batteries? What is the current capacity of the battery and solar cells?
 

bassbindevil

Joined Jan 23, 2014
824
I've come across a couple of modules that can charge 3S lithium-ion packs, based on SY6912 or MAX745 chips. (They'll also do 1S and 2S packs, and the MAX745 can do 4S.) SY6912 voltage and current limiting is set by soldering jumpers and removing shunt resistors; MAX745 has dipswitch and trimpots. Maximum charging current is 2A for SY6912, 1.8A for MAX745. I know the SY6912 gets pretty hot when run at 2A (so I removed shunt resistors to get 1A), haven't tried the MAX745 yet.
Panel size could be anywhere from 5W to 100W depending on battery capacity, how impatient you are, and how clear and sunny the skies are.
 
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